The bridge — really an overpass spanning U.S. 160 southeast of Durango — took an incremental step toward completion when the Colorado Department of Transportation collected public comments on its preferred alternative for a bridge connection.

The bridge — three lanes across and 53 feet long — earned its nickname two years ago when drivers noticed that the impressive-looking span butted up to a hillside and stopped.

CDOT did not have a right of way secured from the landowner of that hillside to extend a road connection across his historic ranch. CDOT officials said at the time that it wasn’t unusual to build such an interchange without having all the access sewn up around it.

“I’m still at a loss to understand why they did what they did when they did it,” said Daniel Gregory, one of a group of attorneys and engineers working on the bridge-to- nowhere issue for landowner Chris Webb.

CDOT spokesperson Nancy Shanks said the agency prefers to call it “the main overpass bridge,” and as such, it is a crucial piece of a $455 million project that will result in an improved 16-mile corridor that links to U.S. 550 between Durango and Bayfield.

Construction on the $47 million interchange that includes the infamous bridge was completed this year.

That interchange piece of the project initially hit a stumbling block in 2007 when a gas well turned up in what would have become a road across the Webb Ranch. CDOT had to make a design change to veer around that, a change that also meant completing a revised environmental-impact study.

The tweaking of the original plans resulted in the three alternatives for hooking up U.S. 160 and U.S. 550 that were displayed for public comment last week. The alternative that would cut through 71 acres of Webb Ranch and two adjoining properties is the one preferred by CDOT. It has the fewest impacts to residents, businesses, irrigated farmland, wildlife habitat and historic sites, according to CDOT.

The Federal Highway Administration will still have to approve that once the public-comment period ends this month.

Engineers hired by Webb Ranch don’t agree with any of the three alternatives, Gregory said. Webb’s engineers have expressed the opinion that it would be better to smooth out the steep, accident- prone section of road known as Farmington Hill, which was one reason for the project.

Another is growth forecast in the area at the southeast of Durango. Mercy Medical Center is now located there. And the Southern Ute Tribe has a residential and commercial project in that area that is planned for 1,800 homes.

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